In a wireless communications system, a communication device may wish to advertise information to be available to other devices in its local vicinity, e.g., presence information, identification information, location information, service information, requests, offers, etc. The information may be advertised for other devices to discover and take subsequent action. For example, based on a detected identifier corresponding to information or an item of interest, a device which detected the discovery information of interest may attempt to establish a connection with the device which transmitted the discovery information of interest. In wireless peer to peer communications systems lacking centralized control, there is a need for devices to be able to recognize the presence of other devices of interest in their vicinity, and the implementation of discovery channels to be used for such a purpose can be beneficial.
In addition to be able to communicate discovery information in a reliable manner, there is a need to provide a mechanism for protection from malicious nodes which may attempt to perform spoofing. Based on the above discussion, there is a need for methods and apparatus to provide confirmation with regard to information communicated on a discovery communications channel. In particular, there is a need for methods and apparatus which allow a receiving device to confirm that received information corresponds to a particular node in a manner that allows the receiving node to be sure that the particular node had control over or authorized the communication of the received information, e.g., communicated expression.